How to Set Boundaries With an Addict

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Stop Enabling and Help Your Loved One Find Recovery Success

Unhealthy boundaries are easy to reinforce and stick to when you have a loved one actively involved in addiction recovery. However, they can take their toll on your mental health. No matter when or if they decide to seek help, you need to know how to set boundaries with an addict in your life.

The first thing you can do is seek help and a supportive network for yourself. Take personal space if and when you need it. Be clear on what you will accept from your loved one, as well as the consequences of violating that rule. Encourage them to seek evidence-based treatment instead of going it alone.

Catalina Behavioral Health offers the structure that family and friends need to set healthy boundaries in addiction recovery. If you want to know how to lay the groundwork for boundaries, here are some tips to set you on the right path.

Tips to Set Healthy Boundaries with Family Members and Loved Ones in Addiction Recovery

Once you have done the work to examine yourself and any unhealthy boundaries you might have held over the years, setting healthy boundaries is the next step. Maintaining healthy boundaries is essential for your mental health. These tips will help you cope with an addicted person in your life.

Seek Treatment for Yourself with a Qualified Therapist

Chances are that you spent an inordinate amount of time persuading an addicted loved one to seek help for substance abuse. Unfortunately, you might not have had the space to think about what would have benefitted you.

Setting boundaries might require you to get clear on your limits, which is easier done in a controlled setting like the therapy room. Make sure that you have your own therapist to talk through the unique struggles of a loved one using substances instead of relying solely on family therapy. Both are critical, but you should invest in your mental health too.

If you can’t afford a personal therapist, you can find a support system through groups like Al-Anon for loved ones of addicts.

Be Clear When Setting Healthy Boundaries

It doesn’t matter where your loved one is in the recovery process. You have to be clear when you set personal boundaries. Let your loved one know what is and is not tolerable to you without waffling on what you will do if they violate your boundaries.

If you say you’re going to spend the night with your parents, you have to follow through. If you say that you will not cover for their mistakes, you have to let them live in the mess that they made.

In other words, get very clear on exactly what the outcome will be if they violate your boundaries. Don’t mince words about what you’re going to do. The clearer you can be early in the process, the better the outcomes will be. Putting a stop to enabling might encourage them to seek professional treatment.

Take Personal Space When Needed

If you have a loved one in recovery, setting boundaries might look more like taking the time you need to heal without them. Addiction treatment programs, especially residential care like that offered at Catalina Behavioral Health, give you space to work through the difficult emotions resulting from addiction.

Even if your loved one is in active addiction, you still have a right to self-care time. Having to set more appropriate boundaries with someone on a recovery journey is exhausting at times. Refill your own well and focus on your well-being by taking time for yourself.

This could be time to engage in a hobby you love, call friends, take a walk, or participate in holistic healing practices like yoga or art therapy. While the family unit is important, so is your mental health. Remain consistent in engaging in these practices.

Be Clear on Your Needs

When other family members have an alcohol or drug addiction, it’s easy to set weak boundaries based on what they need from you. Healthy relationships are a give-and-take process though. Just because they are struggling with addiction doesn’t mean that you aren’t allowed to put demands on them.

It might feel uncomfortable at first to ask for what you need when substance use colors (or entirely encompasses) your days. But the truth is that you might not be useful to anyone if your own needs aren’t met.

Not to mention, your loved one will never know what you expect or need from them if you never directly let them know. Involve the whole family in the conversation (as long as it’s age-appropriate). Give every person the opportunity to ask for what they need.

Seek Out Evidence-Based Treatments

Many people who have an addicted friend or family member in their lives will try to help them completely on their own. It can sometimes feel shameful or uncomfortable to involve an outside party in their efforts to help a loved one find recovery. However, this puts undue pressure on you and can cause you to feel guilty when they use substances.

Getting someone in denial into addiction treatment often requires serious intervention from qualified professionals. Look for evidence-based treatments in a qualified treatment center like Catalina Behavioral Health. We offer cognitive and dialectical behavioral therapies and more. Each treatment plan is customized to the individual client.

It’s important to remember that addiction is a brain disease and needs medical help to resolve the issue.

Set Hard Limits on Drugs and Alcohol

The easiest way to lay down new rules might be to start with the most extreme: removing drugs and alcohol from the house. Make it clear that under no circumstances are they to use substances in the home or your presence.

They might think that they can handle “just one drink,” but the goal should be total abstinence. Don’t allow friends who might be using into your home. That also means that you may have to stop your own substance use in solidarity. Family systems and changes can have a profound effect on addiction.

Never provide them with money that could be used to fund their habit. This is called enabling, and an enabler forms one of the more common, toxic, family roles played out for addicted people and their loved ones.

If you help them financially, purchase what they need (like groceries or pay the electric bill directly). By removing your source of financial support, they might have a harder time accessing substances, which can be quite expensive.

How to Eliminate Unhealthy Boundaries with a Loved One

Maybe you have let substance abuse slide under the rug for far too long. Now, you’re serious about the essential step of establishing new rules with a loved one. The question is: how do you share that things are about to change in a major way?

Here are a few ways you can set the record straight and put new standards in place.

Present a United Front with Loved Ones

Staging an intervention is one way to let your loved one know that there is going to be a new and more structured approach to their substance use. The best thing you can do to ensure that the conversation stays on the rails is to involve all family members and close friends.

Coordinate with them in advance to share what the new boundaries will be. Only include those who are supportive of those plans and are willing to help enforce them.

Explain to your addicted loved one that the people who are present care for them and are doing this from a place of love. If you worry that someone in the support network isn’t going to be reliable or is unable to uphold the boundaries, it might be worth excluding them from the intervention.

Research shows that recognition of a peer could be the catalyst to spark a recovery journey.

Don’t Shame or Blame Addicts

By the time you start to take responsibility for your own reactions, your loved one has likely been mired in addiction for a while. Remember that the goal isn’t to share your resentment with them during these conversations. They likely already feel shame and guilt for the pain that they might be causing.

Instead, you should communicate from a place of love rather than blaming them for your unhappiness (even if it’s true).

The best way to do this is to use statements that focus on you and your feelings rather than a loved one’s actions. Therapists refer to these as “I statements.” You might say, “I feel uncomfortable when you have alcohol in the house,” as opposed to, “You always drink too much on Friday nights.”

While both could be true, the first offers a gentle narrative that encourages reflection rather than blame for bad behaviors.

Make Sure Consequences are Clear

Once you’ve established that certain actions are unacceptable, it’s time to ensure that everyone is on the same page about the consequences. Compromising these rules should never happen for any reason or with any person involved in the day-to-day life of your family. Maintaining consistent rules is different than facing issues enabling as an enmeshed family unit.

An addict might be refusing long-term recovery, but that doesn’t mean bending the rules to suit them.

The only thing you can do is request that your loved one choose sobriety. From here, you should know what to do if they violate your new boundaries (and most people will try at some point). Manipulation will not be effective in convincing you to change your standards.

Ask Them to Seek Help

Finally, end every conversation about these new, healthy boundaries by acknowledging that their issue with drugs and alcohol is impacting their life and yours. While you can’t force them to seek treatment, explain that refusing to change might irreparably damage the relationship.

If you have time to plan out your conversation with them, prepare resources about what drug and alcohol treatment programs are available in your area. Catalina Behavioral Health has an admissions team that can answer your questions and verify insurance benefits with just a few minutes of your time.

Remember that they still have autonomy and can refuse treatment, but you hold steady to your rules.

Seek Help for a Loved One at Catalina Behavioral Health

A loved one struggling with addiction might have behaviors that worry and upset you. They might be facing jail time and seem to have little respect for your feelings. The only thing you can do is offer the support they need when they are ready to receive it.

Catalina Behavioral Health can help them find a place to land when they’re serious about repairing a fractured relationship caused by drugs and alcohol. We offer a residential treatment program where they can focus on recovery without the risk of using substances again.

Our caring Admissions team can answer your questions and prepare you for various ways to handle what can be a difficult conversation. Reach out to us today to learn more about how we can help the person struggling with addiction in your life.

Resources

1. Maina, G., Ogenchuk, M., Phaneuf, T., & Kwame, A. (2021). “I can’t live like that”: the experience of caregiver stress of caring for a relative with substance use disorder. Substance abuse treatment, prevention, and policy, 16(1), 11.
2. Lander, L., Howsare, J., & Byrne, M. (2013). The impact of substance use disorders on families and children: from theory to practice. Social work in public health, 28(3-4), 194–205.
3. Pettersen, H., Landheim, A., Skeie, I., Biong, S., Brodahl, M., Oute, J., & Davidson, L. (2019). How Social Relationships Influence Substance Use Disorder Recovery: A Collaborative Narrative Study. Substance abuse : research and treatment, 13, 1178221819833379.